Caribou Confessional

The house we’re renting is for sale and people keep deciding to come look! So, here I am at Caribou drinking a mint and vanilla steamer until I get to go to a church play tonight (Marissa, one of the kids in Antioch Community Church, has a little solo!). Anyway, onto the long awaited confessional!

This post has been brewing in my head for a long while. I’ve gone back and forth on whether and when I should post. So, I’m diving in with lots of prayer.

Without further ado, I confess that I struggle with body image and weight loss more than I probably let on to others. Throughout high school and the beginning of college, I never gave a thought to either. I am unsure when the change in my thoughts happened or when I really became aware of how many lies, negative thought cycles and distorted views I hold as truth. If anything, I’ve “prided” myself as the type of person who did not count calories and obsess over food.

Last November started a cycle of drastic weight loss. I justified the loss due to the busy-ness of my last semester of college and my use of exercise as a stress reliever. I escaped to the weight room so my mind wouldn’t replay the heart-breaking conversations and the “why” questions. If I ran, biked and went on the elliptical long enough the noise would drown out and I could be normal for a bit. Plus, you can’t cry in the weight room. That just doesn’t work. I probably lost 10 or more pounds. At one point I weighed under 120 pounds. I started weighing myself and turned it into a daily routine where I would make sure I stayed within the “desired” range. In some ways, I was fascinated that I could be this skinny and wondered why I hadn’t lost the weight before. I held onto the prideful “he’s sure missing out now” mentality. On the outside, I would play the loss off as nothing and if anything would play it up as “this isn’t good…” yet that alone had a streak of pride.

In recent months, I’ve started a new job and have gone back to working out an amount that I consider pretty normal and healthy. Due to sitting at a desk all day, tootsie rolls (haha, yeah…) and just a less food/exercise motivated lifestyle, I’ve gained some of the weight back. Yet because I bought some new work clothes at the previous weight some of my pants are starting to fit a little tight. My mind immediately goes to the “you used to weigh 120 so why don’t you just eat a little less, work out a little more and get back there.” Yet at the same time, I recognize my bad habit of eating out of boredom, stress and guilty pleasure. I know I don’t want to eat for those reasons, but at the same time I don’t want to feel guilty every time I eat within moderation or eat a piece of cake or a cookie. I fear getting back into the obsessive exercising and not eating, but at the same time I don’t want to “let myself go.” God does not desire for us to become gluttonous and eat chocolate all day, yet he also does not want the other extreme either. As such, I’m constantly seeking His guidance and asking for my thoughts to be changed in this area. So, there you go. A little glimpse into my struggle to maintain a healthy weight and body image.